What Is a Living Trust? Complete Guide for California

Short answer: A living trust is a legal arrangement you create during your lifetime that holds title to your assets so a trustee can manage and later distribute them without going through probate court. In California, only a revocable living trust that has actually been funded, meaning your assets are retitled into the trust’s name, skips probate. A trust that sits unfunded, or a plain will, does not.

How does a living trust actually work?

A living trust involves three roles. The grantor (also called the settlor) creates the trust and typically serves as the initial trustee while alive and competent. The trustee holds legal title to trust assets and must administer the trust according to its own terms and California law, including a duty to act within a reasonable time even though there is no fixed statutory deadline for distribution. The beneficiaries are the people who eventually receive the assets.

Creating the trust document is only the first step. You then have to “fund” it, which means retitling your house, bank accounts, and other property into the trust’s name. Any asset left outside the trust at your death generally still has to go through probate, regardless of how well the trust document itself is written.

Does a living trust avoid probate in California?

Yes, but only for what you actually put into it. A properly funded revocable living trust passes assets to beneficiaries outside of probate; a will, by contrast, requires probate to take effect at all. Probate is a public, court-supervised process, while trust administration is private and generally happens without a judge.

Avoiding probate matters because of what probate costs. California requires formal probate for an estate with assets subject to probate totaling more than $208,850 gross value, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. The statutory fee schedule pays the executor 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, 2 percent of the next $800,000, and smaller percentages above that, and the estate’s attorney is entitled to an identical fee on the same schedule. On a $1,000,000 estate, that works out to $23,000 for the executor and another $23,000 for the attorney, or $46,000 in ordinary statutory fees before court costs or bond. A funded living trust avoids that fee schedule entirely because there is no probate case for it to apply to.

What is the difference between a revocable and irrevocable living trust?

A revocable living trust can be amended or revoked by the grantor at any time, which is why most California estate plans start there. You keep full control of the assets, you can add or remove property, and you can unwind the whole arrangement if your circumstances change. An irrevocable trust generally cannot be changed once it is signed, which is the tradeoff for the different planning purposes it serves.

What a revocable living trust does not do is save you money on ongoing taxes. It does not reduce income tax, property tax, or estate tax. California has no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax, so that part of the equation is the same whether you use a trust or not.

Will a living trust protect my assets from a nursing home or Medi-Cal?

No, and this is one of the most common misunderstandings about revocable living trusts. Because the grantor can revoke the trust and reclaim the assets at any time, those assets remain fully countable for Medi-Cal eligibility purposes under federal law. If Medi-Cal long-term care planning is part of your goal, a revocable living trust by itself does not accomplish it, and that requires a separate conversation about what tools actually apply to your situation.

What happens to the trust after I die?

When a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, which typically happens at the grantor’s death, the successor trustee has to send a formal written notice to all beneficiaries and legal heirs within 60 days. That notice starts a 120-day window during which the trust can be contested. Beneficiaries are also entitled to accountings from the trustee, and a beneficiary who is not getting them can petition the court to compel one. A typical uncontested trust administration in California runs about 6 to 18 months, though that is a practical range rather than a hard statutory deadline.

How much does a living trust cost in California?

Costs vary by firm and by how the estate plan is structured. At Ridley Law, the flat fee for a complete trust-based estate plan, meaning the revocable living trust itself, a pour-over will, incapacity documents, and the deed to move your California home into the trust, is $4,100 for a married couple and $3,700 for a single person. Weighed against the $46,000 in ordinary statutory fees a $1,000,000 estate could generate in probate, the upfront cost of a properly funded trust is usually the cheaper path over the life of the plan.

Figures verified July 2026.

What to do next

A living trust only works if it is funded, so the real project is not just signing the document but retitling your home, accounts, and other property into the trust’s name and keeping that list current as your life changes. If you are not sure whether your existing trust is properly funded, or whether a trust is the right tool for your situation, talk to a California estate planning attorney who can review your specific assets and how probate under California law would actually apply to you.